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Cape Town Streetkids

Cape Town has many children who roam the streets to beg for food. Broken-down families and repeated abuse by their parents drive them out of their homes to search for a better life in the streets. Growing up in the streets, many children become early drug addicts and develop destructive behavioral patterns such as aggression. NGOs scramble to provide a level of care to such run-aways by providing food and shelter. Other efforts are directed at counseling those families at risk to prevent children abandoning their families. Such efforts are unlikely to stem the flow of street children unless some of the root causes of family breakdown, such as widespread alcoholism in the vast poverty-stricken townships like Kayelitsha, can be resolved.